A Brawl Among WWE Champions

A brawl among WWE Champions is the topic for this issue of Huge Crowd Reactions In Wrestling, we have the aftermath of the “Championship Ascension Ceremony,” an in-ring segment to hype up a match between John Cena and Randy Orton at TLC 2013 to unify the World Heavyweight Championship and the WWE Championship. It was meant to celebrate both titles and the men who’ve held them, including, most famously, Triple H.

Welcome back to Huge Crowd Reactions in Wrestling. This series is basically an excuse for us here at Pro Wrestling Stories to revel in some of the moments that made us lose our minds. I mean, we’re all pretty huge wrestling fans. We live for those huge crowd reactions. Even as at-home viewers, those are the moments we crave. We want to be on the edge of our seats, or even out of them entirely.

CM Punk spoke for so many in that moment, without saying a word.

The Doctor of Thuganomics held the big gold belt going in, while The Viper was in possession of the most prestigious prize in all of sports entertainment. Usually, when people talk about this segment, they talk about what came before. They talk about the televised hijacking perpetrated by the crowd that night, who would not let Daniel Bryan be ignored. Unfortunately, because of that, the ending of the whole ceremony tends to go unnoticed.

Unseen Footage of the WWE Champions Brawl started by John Cena and Randy Orton

The video below is labeled as, “Unseen footage of the brawl between former WWE and World Champions: WWE.com Exclusive, Dec. 13, 2013.” As per usual in a segment such as this, everything broke down into a fight. Alternate angles are used from the televised version and the commentary is removed, greatly adding to the whole atmosphere.

It starts with John Cena and Randy Orton. The ring full of WWE champions steps in to separate them. Then Randy puts his hands on CM Punk, who has no choice but to fire back. From there, Triple H steps in and forcibly throws Punk off of The Viper, and down to the mat. Again, Punk cannot let this stand.

So he fires back and unloads on the COO of the WWE. Unfortunately for him, he catches a superkick from HBK for his troubles. Even worse for Shawn Michaels, however, is that his involvement in the WWE Champions brawl earns him two knees to the face from a running Daniel Bryan. After that, Orton tries to RKO D-Bry, but he reverses it and pushes Randy off, sending him right into Stephanie McMahon. The force obviously drops her to the canvas. This trespass earns The Apex Predator a particularly aggressive Pedigree from Triple H. It’s really cool how everything breaks down.

Do yourself a favor, and click play to see this all-out WWE Champions Brawl.

This was perfectly executed. They smoothly go from spot to spot, and it all works. More importantly, the crowd was WAY into it. Especially when Punk hit Triple H, and then Bryan hit HBK. They blew the roof off the place!

The legendary 2014 Royal Rumble came not too long after this. Daniel Bryan and Bray Wyatt opened the show in a really solid match. Everyone wanted Bryan in the Rumble later that night.

Then the numbers start to tick down. Time for number thirty…it has to be him!

WHO’S THAT JUMPIN’ OUT THE SKY?!?

Rey Mysterio?!?! BOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

The poor guy got viciously booed for not being Daniel Bryan. CM Punk left the company the day after, legitimately. Daniel Bryan’s momentum could no longer be ignored by the top brass in WWE. A few months later at WrestleMania XXX, he defeated Triple H in the opening match of the show, earning his way into the main event. It became a triple threat for Randy Orton’s recently unified WWE World Heavyweight Championship. The third competitor beingBatista, who also fell victim to some vicious booing for not being Daniel Bryan when he won the 2014 Royal Rumble. The Animal would, of course, tap to Daniel Bryan at the Showcase of the Immortals creating this crowning moment…

[Photo courtesy of WWE.com]

Joey Finnegan is a writer and filmmaker for Nerdopotamus.net as well as a regular contributor for ProWrestlingStories.com. He can be reached on Twitter @JFinnegan45.